tonight on "nightline," locked up alone. it is a controversial punishment. known to push even the most hardened criminals past their breaking point. >> i'm going crazy in here! >> tonight, our reporter gets a dose of what some call the monster factory. get me out of here! there is the klaas phobia, mental breakdowns and those blood curdling screams. reporting from the front line of an american nightmare, abc's dan harris spends 48 hours in solitary confinement. >> announcer: from the global resources of abc news, with terry moran, cynthia mcfadden

and bill weir in new york city, this is a special edition of "nightline," no way out. september 20th, 2012. >> good evening, i'm bill weir. well, tonight, across this country, some 80,000 prisoners are locked in solitary confinement. prison reformers pushed it as a humane alternative to hanging, almost 200 years ago. but some modern reformers think it is pure torture. practice has led to congressional hearings, u.n. reports, inmate hunger strikes. to better understand the toll of forced solitude, abc's dan harris volunteered to spend 48 hours in the hole. >> reporter: i'm cuffed and stuffed in the back of a sheriff's vehicle. >> right in front of you. turn around, put your hands -- >> reporter: this is everybody's worst nightmare. >> come on this way, please. >> reporter: the fther we get into this, the more real it feels.

>> look up at the camera, please. >> everything you need for your spell upstairs. shoes, a blanket. >> reporter: i am about to enter what some have called a monster factory. we arrive at what will be my new home. it's 7 by 12 feet, all concrete and metal. i am in solitary confinement. everybody agrees criminals should be punished, but critics say solitary is legalized torture. that makes inmates more dangerous when they get out and can be three times as expensive as regular inmate housing. but corrections officials insist it is a necessary tool to

control a dangerous population. so, to get a sense of what it's really like, we were granted an extraordinary inside look. officials at the downdown denver detention center agreed to make me an inmate for 48 hours. locked up, alone, in a room with only a camera to talk to. tell you what, when that door closes and you're in here, by yourself? it is very lonely feeling. pretty soon, the screaming starts. >> i'm going crazy in here! they're leaving me locked in a room for 23 hours a day! >> reporter: while the commotion is jarring to me -- >> making sure everybody's okay and making sure everyone has regular breathing going on, no one's trying to hurt themselves. >> reporter: it is nothing new at all for guards like thomas

acey, who works the overnight shift. he makes his rounds every half hour. >> this is my pod. on in here, just to have a good feeling on what's going on. you hear it all. >> reporter: as night falls and the lights go out, the howling and banging gets more intense. the guy in the cell directly below me is having a meltdown for several hours now, screaming, banging on the door of his cell. my neighbor downstairs also in solitary has taken off his clothes, he's urinated all over the floor and ripped up pages of the bible and slipped them under his cell door. for their own safety and the safety of the inmates, the guards don't go into the cell unless the inmate is actually hurting himself. >> you can't help but wonder how

they're feeling. you have to take that into consideration, too. when someone is acting out, you have to put yourself in their shoes. after a couple of months of solitary confinement, your mind starts playing tricks on you. >> reporter: studying show the human brain actually sloems down after just a week in solitary and that lengthy sentences can do damage similar to head trauma. we are social animals. take away human interaction and inmates often become depressed, consumed by irrational anger, violent and suicidal. >> what's your name? what's your birthday? >> reporter: making matters even more volatile? many of the inmates who end up in solitary are already mentally ill. and regularly medicated. back in my cell, surrounded by the sounds of human suffering, with zero privacy, lights streaming in and only a thin blanket to keep me warm, i settle in for a long, restless night.

morning arrives and so does breakfast, through a slot in the door. i got to tell you, it is virtually impossible to get an ininterrupted nights sleep here because there's so much noise. it's hard to figure out what to do with myself. i stare off, brush my teeth, work out. this is my mini jail-issue toothbrush. my liquid toothpaste. this is the sink area. >> i'm sure the minutes in there seem like hours. >> reporter: the guards, who are monitoring my every move say they are surprised by how quickly i've adopted typical inmate behavior. >> he's been stretching, pacing back and forth. so, kind of typical behavior, actually, of what we see, minus the screaming and the yelling. >> this is my own solitary. just playing a game of cards.

>> reporter: there are basically three kinds of inmates in here. >> i just did a little sketch of some mountains. that's what i do miss. >> reporter: those that prefer it, which is rare, like herschel franklin, in for first degree assault. >> i got breakfast in bed, lunch in bed, dinner in bed. i ain't got to worry about other guys with their problems, whatever. i'm just deeming with me. this is no game. this is not a game. >> reporter: then, there are those who are in here for their own protection, like my downstairs neighbor, who is mentally ill. the other type of person who ends up in solitary? >> how do you plead to the charges? >> guilty. >> reporter: the rulebreakers, like dylan head, captured here on jail cameras getting into a fight. >> i'm okay giving him up to 15 days. >> reporter: as dylan goes in -- >> think about it before i get into a fight next time. >> reporter: jail officials invite me for a chat, a welcome relief from my stifling cell.

on my way, i step around the pages of the bible that my neighbor ripped up overnight. >> one of our worst nightmares would be to be in your situation, where we were locked down like that. >> reporter: really? >> yeah. because we're -- you know, we see this all the time, so -- we understand. this is our way of keeping people safe. worried about people getting hurt and some of these folksn general population would be a danger to themselves and other inmates. this is the best tool we have. >> reporter: our interview is interrupted by a horrifying noise. what is that? we'll show you what happened in a moment. also, coming up, inside the cells with the other inmates. how do they get through the day? >> that's what you hear all day. that's what you hear 24/7. ♪

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>> announcer: this special edition of until n, "nightline, out, continues from new york with bill weir. >> here on the outside, the common belief is for solitary confinement is only for the most hardened inmates. but not so. in some prisons, contraband will earn a prisoner in the hole and almost all of these men will be released back into society some day. studies show they are more likely to reoffend on the outside as a result. we return now to abc's dan harris, almost through his first day of confinement to look for clues as to why. >> reporter: i've now been in solitary for 18 hours. >> good morning, guys. >> reporter: i'm meeting with jail officials. feels good to be out of that little cage, i'll tell you that

much. when we are loudly interrupted. what is that? it is my neighbor, the mentally ill inmate, breaking down while guards return him to his cell after a court appearance. jail officials admit, sometimes when they put people in solitary, they just get worse. so, that raises the question about whether maybe -- is there a better way? >> that's a question that we all are asking and i don't know what the answer is. >> reporter: while here at this jail, most inmates are not in solitary for more than 60 days, in some prisons, inmates can be in for years, decades, even. when i'm returned to my cell, after my meeting with the guards, listen to what one of them tells me. >> people need to know what goes on here. thank you. >> reporter: thank you. i'm back in my cell for the rest of this day of tedium, broken up only by barely edible meals. a bologna sandwich, lettuce,

couple slices of american cheese, some cookies. i know i only have 18 hours left, but i have a hard time wrapping my head around how i'm going to make it through the sheer density of the boredom that being in solitary entails. in another part of the jail, marcel woods passes the time by writing his mom a letter. >> i told her when i have trial coming up. >> reporter: marcel has been in and out of jail his entire life. this time, it's theft and assault charges. >> hopefully this time i learned my lesson. this isn't the place to be. if you don't have this, then you go stir crazy. listen to the news, music, sports. >> reporter: august rayfield, who swears by his jail-issued transistor radio is in for meth possessi possession, stolen checks and domestic violence. >> we have one of these. >> reporter: the other thing keeping him sane, the calendar where he counts down the days.

>> so, 31, 31, 30. and that's what you hear all day. that's what you hear 24/7. no way to live. don't break the law. >> reporter: back in my cell, the noise has also begun. it's my neighbor downstairs again. as i get ready for sleep, i'm wondering whether i can make it. the guards have told me i can leave at any time if i can't take it anymore and that idea is becoming increasingly tempting. the next morning, i wake up in my tiny cell. personally, i can smell freedom at this point and i am ready to get out of here. outside, the deputy makes his time rounds of the morning before his shift ends. he admits looking at the faces of men behind glass every day is not easy psychologically. >> the night shift is intense. you got to stay awake, you got

to -- you got to stay active. every day is a new story. >> reporter: every inmate gets one free hour outside his cell per day. all right. shower time. they told me not to interact with any of the inmates. >> you're going to need your shower shoes, bro. >> even when they taunt me. >> going to catch gingivitis. >> i have a prepaid call from an inmate in denver downtown detention center. >> reporter: during my free hour, i get a chance to call my wife. >> in terms of you feeling like you're losing your mind, do you have a sense of what that might be like? >> reporter: yeah, i mean, i haven't felt like i'm losing my mind, but i get a little glimpse of what it must feel like. i know i'm going to get out. >> reporter: coming up, more trouble with my mentally ill neighbor. and, i finally get to meet my fellow inmates and ask them, if you did the crime, shouldn't you do the time? i don't know how much sympathy there is in the general public

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prisoners in solitary confinement may have adequate food and water, their cells may meet criteria for humane treatment, but deprived of human contact, utterly cut off from the world, that is enough for

many human rights groups to consider it torture. we return now to abc's dan harris, entering his final stretch in solitary. >> reporter: 42 hours in solitary and my downstairs neighbor is acting up again. when guards come to get him for a court appearance, he refuses to leave. >> he's not going anywhere. >> no? >> he ain't going. >> reporter: the inmate appears to be yelling for a shotgun. >> i want a shotgun! i want a shotgun. >> mr. harris, pack all your stuff up and everything. bring all your trash out. you're being released. >> reporter: finally, after nearly 48 hours, it's the moment i've been waiting for. i am glad that is over. before i leave here for good, the guards let me interview some of my fellow inmates about this experience we've now shared. >> not a man in this place is not the same as when they came in here. >> reporter: it changes you? >> oh, yeah. most definitely.

>> reporter: there are some people who think solitary confinement is torture. >> it is. it is. it's the hardest thing i ever did. >> reporter: this is the hardest thing you've ever done? >> by far. >> reporter: i don't know how much sympathy there is in the general public for people who have committed crimes. >> there's none. >> reporter: you can make a case that it's good for some people who keep getting in trouble, like you, to be hit in the face with reality. >> like, if you're violent, i think you should be in here, but other than that, i don't think you should be in solitary. >> reporter: it is, perhaps, not surprising that the criminals who are actually locked up in solitary would argue it's torture. but as i'm guided out of the jail -- people usually in a good mood at this point in the process? >> you know, majority of the people are in an ecstatic mood. >> reporter: given my stuff back. >> looking forward to your cell phone. >> reporter: i missed my cell phone. okay. and allowed to change into my own clothes. >> so, put the clothes in that hole right there. >> reporter: mixed in with the

giddiness of liberty -- >> head out this way here. >> reporter: are real questions about the cost of solitary confinement in this country. financial, psychological and societal. >> freedom will start past this second door. >> reporter: after all, all of this is being done in our name and on our dime. for "nightline," this is dan harris in denver. >> our thanks to dan harris and to the denver sheriff's department who opened their doors for us recently for that story. fascinating glimpse. finally, it is a benchmark moment in the war in afghanistan tonight. the surge is over. it's been nearly two years since president obama ordered 33,000 troops to help put a stop to escalating violence in afghanistan. tonight, u.s. officials announced the last of those surge troops are coming home, with a promise to get almost all of the troops out by 2014. as of tonight, about 68,000 remain in the war zone. thank you for watching abc ne.